Paris shines again as Redbacks crumble on final day

A career-first 10-wicket bag for left-arm swing bowler Joel Paris momentarily reinstated reigning champions Western Australia to the top the Marsh Sheffield Shield table – before Tasmania's audacious run chase in Hobart - having administered a 200-run belting to South Australia.

Paris's 5-39 today followed the 6-74 he captured in the Redbacks' first innings, making him just the fourth WA bowler behind ex-Test quicks Dennis Lillee (1975-76) and Bruce Reid (1990-91) as well as wrist spinner and current assistant coach Beau Casson (2002-03) to snare 10 in a Shield game at Adelaide Oval.

Having declared on their overnight score of 8-377 thereby setting SA a distant target of 355 to win from a minimum 96 overs today, the competition heavyweights knocked them over for 154 shortly after tea to complete their second outright win from three matches.

It was Paris's removal of SA number three Daniel Drew not long before lunch that set WA on the path to victory as the home team surrendered 4-18 from nine overs either side of the main break to crash from 1-53 to 5-71, with no batter able to reach 30.

"We missed him the first couple of games," WA coach Adam Voges said of his strike bowler who was sidelined for the first two matches of the team's Shield defence due to a hamstring injury Paris sustained playing for Australia A last August.

"He's been the leader of our attack for a number of years now, and he showed why over the last four days.

"I thought his control and skill, the way he was able to move the ball not only through the air but off the wicket made life really difficult for the South Australian top order, and he was just class for four days."

The match was finely balanced after two days, with SA holding a 23-run first-innings lead but the titleholders bossed the second half of the match thanks to batting dominance of opener Cameron Bancroft (100) and allrounder Aaron Hardie (99) before Paris and fellow left-armer Liam Haskett (3-31) struck with the ball.

WA's cause was aided by some remarkable catching on the final day, with Bancroft's flying one-handed snare at second slip to remove SA skipper Jake Lehmann a highlight while a couple of diving efforts from substitute fielder Charlie Stobo were not far behind.

Stobo spent most of today on the field after fast bowler Cameron Gannon, who had missed the previous Shield game with a quadriceps injury, appeared to aggravate the problem in bowling his third over this morning and took no further part in the match.

"When you're pretty much at parity after two days and there's all three results well and truly available, I thought we set it up perfectly with the batting performance yesterday and then Joel Paris led from the front again with the ball today," Voges said.

"Unfortunately, we lost Cameron Gannon early but it just meant we had to find a different way of getting those ten wickets, and I was really pleased with how the boys went about it."

SA's all-too familiar batting woes again started at the very top, when out-of-sorts opener Kelvin Smith nicked to slip to complete a 13-ball duck with the only score on the board at that point being Paris's first-over no-ball.

It's now more than three years since SA posted a century opening stand in the Shield, the most recent being the 125 forged by Henry Hunt and Jake Weatherald against WA at Karen Rolton Oval during the COVID-hub season of 2020-21.

That was the Redbacks first outing under newly appointed coach Gillespie (although he wasn't in attendance as he was serving quarantine time at an Adelaide hotel), and across 27 matches since they've managed just seven first-wicket stands of 50-plus, with an average opening contribution of 22.

During the same barren period, all rival states have posted at least two opening partnerships of 100 or above, with WA pair Bancroft and Sam Whiteman leading the way with seven.

"Steve Stubbings, our batting coach mentioned that, and said 'learn from opposition'," Gillespie said of the batting example set by WA in their second innings.

"They are the benchmark, so we spoke about that, and spoke about how Bancroft played his innings so that's something we aspired to do today – we needed someone to anchor this innings and see it through.

"In three Shield games we've had seven individual scores above 40 and we need to be better, simple as that."

Smith's early exit was mitigated for a while by a dogged 52-run union (from 128 balls) between Hunt and Drew, but when the latter tried to force the pace against Paris and drag the target below 300, the innings descended into free-fall.

Only once this season – in the first innings of their recent hefty win over bottom-placed New South Wales – have SA's first four wickets carried the total past 100, and at 5-71 shortly after lunch today it was once more up to the middle and lower-orders to undertake the salvage work.

But despite brief resistance from Nathan McSweeney (25) and Harry Nielsen, it was a task that proved beyond their brittle batting capabilities.

"There was a chance to win the game and then, when that became a challenge, there was an opportunity to save it but we weren't able to do that as well, which is disappointing," Gillespie said.

"Day two was the opportunity we probably missed to drive this game forward, the surface had settled down but we just couldn't string any partnerships together.

"We're finding ourselves four-down regularly for not many, so that's something we really need to improve on.

"We just can't keep having these performances."

WA's next Shield game is against winless NSW at the SCG starting November 6, while SA travel to Brisbane and tackle Queensland at the Gabba where they have not won since 2008-09.

Sheffield Shield 2023-24 standings

Team	Matches played M	Wins W	Losses L	Drawn D	No results N/R	Deductions Ded.	Batting Bonus Bat	Bowling Bonus Bowl	Total points PTS
1 Western Australia Men WA	10	5	2	3	0	0	5.53	9.4	47.93
2 Tasmanian Tigers Men TAS	10	5	2	3	0	0	6.06	8.3	47.36
3 NSW Men NSW	10	4	3	3	0	0	6.31	9	42.31
4 Victoria Men VIC	10	4	4	2	0	0	4.74	8.2	38.94
5 South Australia Men SA	10	3	6	1	0	0	5.19	9.3	33.49
6 Queensland Bulls QLD	10	2	6	2	0	0	3.54	8.3	25.84

Legend

M: Matches played

W: Wins

L: Losses

D: Drawn

N/R: No results

Ded.: Deductions

Bat: Batting Bonus

Bowl: Bowling Bonus

PTS: Total points